FCC: open schools to community Internet use

Thanks to the FCC, the path is now cleared for E-Rate funded schools to let …

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The Federal Communications Commission has recommended a host of ways that the government can help make broadband more useful to Americans when it comes to health care, energy costs, and jobs. And new rules enacted by the agency will let thousands of public schools open their Internet facilities to the public.

"Broadband’s ability to improve lives goes far beyond a strictly 'educational' context," noted Commissioner Mignon Clyburn during Thursday's Open Commission FCC meeting. "Computer terminals at public access points that sit dormant waste an important opportunity to help members of the public search for jobs."

Clyburn was referring to an Order that will let schools that participate in the FCC's E-Rate computer equipment funding program open their doors to Internet seekers during non-operating hours. Right now, K-12s that take E-Rate money for equipment and broadband connectivity can only offer those resources to their students. That means that these facilities go unused on evenings, weekends, and during summer breaks.

Now schools that permit community access can share their networked computers with job seekers, students enrolled in digital literacy programs, and people who need to access government services online. The ruling comes in the form of a waiver of the FCC's requirement that E-Rate recipients only use these funds for educational purposes. The Order will last through the E-Rate funding year, up until June 30, 2011. But schools have to promise that they won't request more E-Rate money than they need for their students, will only open their Internet doors when students are out of school, and won't sell their facilities to anyone.

No backdoors

"The change in our rules should not inadvertently put an increased demand on the E-Rate program," warned Commissioner Robert M. McDowell. "It should not provide a backdoor way for schools to request more funds than necessary to support their student populations, and any upcoming audits should be designed in a manner to foreclose such actions."

This expansion of E-Rate facilities was first tried in Alaska. It could take some of the pressure off public libraries, which share their Internet stations with patrons for general use, and have been deluged with job seekers who have no access to broadband anywhere else. But one wonders how many cash-strapped public schools will avail themselves of this change, given that opening up their workstations will require them to spend additional money on access supervisors and technical support.

Nonetheless, the move won praise from Representative Edward Markey (D-MA), who has a bill in the House that would allow E-Rate to fund e-Book readers and home broadband connections for low income K-12 kids. Free Press also cheered the announcement, but noted that it falls far short of the reform group's own recommendations, which include letting schools offer WiFi to local neighborhoods.

Anytime, anywhere

Meanwhile, yet another sneak preview of the agency's National Broadband Plan surfaced at Thursday's meeting. The FCC's broadband National Purposes Update didn't mention any of the big regulatory recommendations that it will make to Congress when the plan is unveiled on March 17. But the document did offer a laundry list of ways that government could make broadband more useful for the public. These include:

Some of these proposals are a bit difficult to decipher, e.g., "Improve ability of federal buildings to serve as anchor tenants for unserved and underserved communities." Will the FCC suggest running fiber lines to federal buildings as a way to jumpstart local ISP activity?

The FCC has been trying to get that interoperable public safety network out the door for quite a while. At present the Commission is tasked by Congress with auctioning off a chunk of spectrum to a private company that will share the bandwidth with public safety agencies. The one and only attempt at that auction failed, and now public safety groups want the agency to allocate that band to them outright, something that Capitol Hill would have to authorize first.

16 Reader Comments

All schools are (or should be) secure access, so allowing use of the computer labs after hours requires at minimum 2 people to be on staff at that time. I don't see that happening for more than maybe an hour a day.

Sounds like a great idea if you never actually think about it. I'm not surprised it came from what amounts to a politician.

As usual, if you take half a moment to think about the realities of implementing such a system, the entire idea falls apart instantly.

I don't know about anyone else's district, but mine shuts off services on evenings and weekends and during any breaks. That means no AC/heat, no computers and reduced support of everything else.

Why? Money. There's just not enough of it, and keeping building in operating condition when they're largely empty is enormously expensive.

Even putting all of that aside, some level of staff will be required to be kept on hand, and that will cost money.

Beyond that, off times are when maintenance and updates are typically carried out and this would get in the way. Additionally, the extra wear and tear on the machines when opened to the typically destructive general public will mean more machines will need to be replaced more often. And that's ignoring the greatly increased and very real risk of vandalism and theft that the rest of the school property would be subjected to.

I can absolutely guarantee that this "order" would come with zero additional funding to offset any of this as well.

So it sounds like a good idea on the surface, but really isn't, there's no money to sustain it, and it's a practical impossibility in the current education environment and would only serve to further harm the overall educational experience for students. About all it'll actually do is make some politicians look good.

Originally posted by Raptor:Sounds like a great idea if you never actually think about it. I'm not surprised it came from what amounts to a politician.

As usual, if you take half a moment to think about the realities of implementing such a system, the entire idea falls apart instantly.

I don't know about anyone else's district, but mine shuts off services on evenings and weekends and during any breaks. That means no AC/heat, no computers and reduced support of everything else.

Why? Money. There's just not enough of it, and keeping building in operating condition when they're largely empty is enournmously expensive.

Even putting all of that aside, some level of staff will be required to be kept on hand, and that will cost money.

Beyond that, off times are when maintenance and updates are typically carried out and this would get in the way. Additionally, the extra wear and tear on the machines when opened to the typically destructive general public will mean more machines will need to be replaced more often.

I can absolutely guarantee that this "order" would come with zero additional funding to offset any of this as well.

So it sounds like a good idea on the surface, but really isn't, there's no money to sustain it, and it's a practical impossibility in the current education environment and would only serve to further harm the overall educational experience for students. About all it'll actually do is make some politicians look good.

Sounds like it has all the hallmarks of a done deal.

I agree fully. I worked for a school system a little while back, and at least over any break the AC/Heat was always turned off, and while we had separate systems for our servers rooms, everywhere else was not monitored.Add in the fact that you do not only need IT staff there in case of an emergency, but you need staff on hand at the site to monitor who is using the facility and how they are using it - you can't just let people walk in and use the facility with no one else there. Also you have the problem of having to implement a new system to let these people access the computers and network creating tons of work for sysadmins and possibly even your network engineers.There is no way schools will get enough money to make this feasible at all, even if the logistics of enabling this plan weren't terrifying.

It sounds to me like this change just makes it legal to do something, not require schools to open themselves to the public. I guess the funding previously came with the stipulation that it wouldn't be used for anything but school purposes.

As the network admin for a K-12 school who happens to be applying for E-Rate funding, I certainly hope this is the case.

My personal experience in supporting e-rate customers in the past is that they themselves are illiterate, have little to no resources to effectively manage their Internet bandwidth from their own students, and often rely (ahem, blame) their network providers with little to no apologies when proven the problem is in their local network.

This is only another abuse of E-rate services. Why can't someone go to the public library and use those computers to apply for jobs online? One would have to be pretty poor to be unable to afford even entry level broadband and a computer. I think this is a case of needy folks needing to re-prioritize themselves.

My personal experience in supporting e-rate customers in the past is that they themselves are illiterate, have little to no resources to effectively manage their Internet bandwidth from their own students, and often rely (ahem, blame) their network providers with little to no apologies when proven the problem is in their local network.

I'd say then that the school shouldn't allow free access to just do whatever, but instead provide coached workshops to teach these folks skills they could use.

However, if they're the kinds of folks I think you're talking about, they're not interested in that. They just want some place to go screw around, not better themselves. So, it would be a waste of tax-payer money.

I think the adjustment will be helpful but other commentators bring up a lot of good points. There are costs beyond the broadband and computers that need to be taken into account, but most of the labor could be volunteer.

I'm sure there will be quite a lot of communities that will rally around this and make something of it. Give it a chance!

I'm sure there will be quite a lot of communities that will rally around this and make something of it. Give it a chance!

Then you're not cynical enough There's substantial cost associated with something like this--staffing, additional utilities, increased support (more screwups with a larger user base). And it doesn't appear to provide a way to fund those cost. So it's basically pointless. Now, if it could set up a way to handle those cost, that might be good, but as it stands, it's pointless. I admit it's tempting to find other ways to use school facilities during downtime, but thought needs to given to logistics and they weren't.

I don't have kids, so I really couldn't care less, but the only way I really see it working is if the computer lab in question is completely separate from the rest of the school. Or the computer lab has a separate entrance/exit, so the rest of the school stays secure.

That means that these facilities go unused on evenings, weekends, and during summer breaks.

Yes, it also means that unless the money is magically provided to keep them open, secure, staffed, and maintained; that NONE of this is going to happen. I don't know about elsewhere, but the abortion that is school (or for that matter library) funding in the state of Ohio will simply not allow anyone to do this; not while they are laying off teachers, cutting staff, removing maintenance personnel, stopping busing, and dropping things like AP classes. The public libraries are in no better shape to provide these types of services.

Matthew Lasar / Matt writes for Ars Technica about media/technology history, intellectual property, the FCC, or the Internet in general. He teaches United States history and politics at the University of California at Santa Cruz.